Whatever way you put it, the US is now in the "exit strategy" phase of its intervention
in Iraq, even if a seriously weakened Bush continues to talk - and believe - that victory
remains possible. There is a blizzard of opinions being published in foreign policy journals
and discussed on the opinion pages of American newspapers about what a good - or the least bad -
exit strategy might look like.
(snip)
What is not much discussed, and what to me seems to be a pressing moral imperative, is that
whatever is done, the Iraqi people must not be abandoned, left to the mercy of a failed state in
which death squads, terrorists, militias and insurgents are unboudn, released from all restraints.
(snip)
Not only is James Baker, the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, a former secretary of state in
the elder Bush's regime a so-called "foreign policy realist" so too are most of the study groups
advisers. These realists reckon there is no moral dimension to foreign policy, just perceived
national interest. As a consequence, having decided no to remove Saddam Hussein from power after
the first Gulf War in 1991, they encouraged an uprising against Saddam by Shiites and Kurds which
resulted in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people. These realists did nothing to stop
the massacres on the basis that US national interest was not at stake.
I fear that the Iraqi people, the vast majority of whom are not members of death squads and
militias or the insurgency, but rather are their victims, are about to be betrayed again. Their
1991 betrayers may again be in a position to decide their fate.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/history-could-repeat-horribly-after-handwashing/2006/11/12/1163266407608.htmlA very thoughtful article from The Sydney Morning Herald's Washington correspondent. There is no
easy answer, but I'm afraid Bush and Co. are going to be looking for one, regardless of the result
for the Iraqi people. The dirtiest of the dirty tricks.